1. A day off. We could go back to the allotment and finish the bed edging; we could put the trellises up in the garden – but we’re going to sit on the sofa all day and relax instead. Lily approves.

1b. “Are we having popcorn?” I ask, as we prepare to watch Game of Thrones. We usually do, but it’s usually just after dinner when the popcorn is dessert. After breakfast it seems … delightfully gluttonous.

2. We take Lily on a walk down to the canal – the first time we’ve been that way this year. She’s a little chesty at the moment so tires quickly but still bounces in and out of the water chasing sticks.

2b. We walk back along the secret canal path, meeting some (presumably rescue) hens along the way. We stop to chat to them and I admire their clever, safe run (an old metal greenhouse frame covered in small-hole chicken wire).

2c. I spot some board games high in a window: two versions of Scrabble and Settlers of Catan. My kind of people.

3. Though it’s as populous as usual and everyone is working hard, there is a calmness over the allotments. The stillness, the evening sun. I’d said I’d be home “within the hour” but I can’t resist staying longer.

3b. The fields – full of weeds and wildflowers (I’m not sure what the distinction is between those actually) – look glorious in the golden hour. I stop to take pictures.

1. At Five Lanes End, we, almost randomly, pick the right exit.

1b. We bounce from shop to shop looking for weed suppressant fabric and coffee beans but along the way I also find a cheap greenhouse shelving unit (which has been on my to-buy list for a couple of months) and some cheap growbag trays (which I use under my seedlings at this time of year). I have to walk like a crab down the aisles to avoid knocking everything over: I quietly make the Zoidberg noise as I go.

2. We’ve procrastinated about it all day but the edging of the long beds is finished in next to no time, and the greenhouse goes up very quickly too.

3. Pleasing graphics and colours on a new French vocab game.

1. Crumpets with lemon curd.

2. To get all the wood over to the allotment without any accidents. The glorious moment when a sawn piece of wood gives. To think of all the ways the new edging will make things better.

3. A car journey of spoiler sharing and slightly mindblowing (though easily unpickable) realisations.

1. The fat leaves of the pumpkin plants get rounder every day.

1b. Kaufman’s back legs dangle as I carry him out of the chicken run.

2. We met a young springer in the park. When we first see him at a distance, he looks to have similar markings to Lily and when she stares at him, we voice her confusion about whether she’s looking through a portal into the past. Then I correct it to “a portly into the past”.

3. John giggles at how cute Strange and Lily are when they sleep next to each other.

1. I feel myself reinflating as the painkillers kick in.

2. R looks around the gardens then has a conversation with the chickens.

3. I read a French phrase on Duolingo and afterwards, I realise that I’ve understood it without having to consciously translate it.

3b. A day sucked up by go-nowhere arguments online but between us, we still make breakthroughs which help our understanding and will strengthen our position in the future.

1. It’s ridiculously early but ridiculously sunny and beautiful out of the window. I’m almost not annoyed that I can’t sleep. *Almost*.

1b. Lily won’t look at me, then I realise she is – via the mirror. Mirror-Louisa taps the bed and she jumps up.

2. My mega Meeple isn’t quite perfect but I still like him a lot. In the end, after much frustrating experimentation, I’m glad that I abandoned my original plan of a uniform colour: one mistake in a uniform glaze ruins it; a large issue with the dappled glaze almost enhances it.

2b. The crowd isn’t right for the joke I want to make about the cylinder of deep green clay but I tickle myself with Hulk penis silliness anyway.

2c. Finding the right texture eventually.

3. I try to describe how gorgeous Lily looks on the top of the hill in the sunshine but before I can manage it, she’s off again into the deers’ meadow and – oh! disturbs a sleeping deer! She doesn’t notice as it stands up and makes it away down the scrub at the side of the glade.